Wii Love You. Now Change!

Contents

Nintendo isn't the giant it was years ago, but the company is going strong with the success of its Wii gaming console. The Wii represents a wacky new console philosophy for everyone, young or oldthe Volkswagen of gaming, even. But despite Nintendo's experience and great intentions, the Wii is hardly free of irritating quirks. In some ways, the cute little thing is more frustrating and intimidating than any of its predecessors. And the issue is, most of this stuff could have been avoided. It's not just me. Here's what gamers have been carping about:

Games Tied to an Individual Wii

Want to play a little Bomberman at your friend's house? Or another Virtual Console (VC) game? He's going to have to buy it, or you're going to have to lug your Wii over. No hard drive that pops out. No logging on to your account from over there. No iTunes-like keying of your game library to your SD card. I can understand wanting to avoid piracy, but Nintendo could update the Wii to kill freeloading tricks when and if they came up, and most all the people with that mentality already have all these games for their emulators, anyway. Pretty much the only reason this doesn't provoke more umbrage than it does is that, compared with lugging around any other system, moving a Wii is like carrying a memory card.

Getting Online

The Wii's got a great little online back end and interface, but to get there you have to go wireless. If you're one of those poor Stone-Age bastards who don't have everything, from their PC to their coffeemaker, linked through a cloud of magic computer rayswell, tough. You can't plug the thing into a wall (the only way is to order a separate USB-to-LAN adapter). So you end up stuck without many reasonable choices to make. If you won't join the wireless age, then Nintendo doesn't want you playing its online games. As if it had any.

Look for Nintendo to provide new options in this area going forward.

Being Online

Where the Sony PlayStation 3 has a lousy, all-over-the-road online scheme with a handful of games trying to make it work, Nintendo has a potentially great online setup with absolutely no games whatsoever taking advantage of it. For now and the immediate future, there just isn't any point to hooking the thing up other than for downloading VC games or trading your Miis around. And that can get old after the fifteenth Jesus or Michael Jackson wanders into your Mii parade.

20-Hour Battery Life

Yeah, it beeps and shakes and stuff, but still, 20 hours of life is pretty darn short for a wireless controller. Worse, it's the only controller from this generation of gaming systems that you can't plug into a USB port to recharge. You're either going to have to buy a battery charger or stockpile AA batteries. Whee!

Classic Controller Extra

You have to buy the traditional controller for an awful lot of VC games. That's fine. In fact, it's such a nice little controller that I wish I could use it instead of the GameCube controller for Cube games. Which you freaking can't. And it bugs me that it's required at all for some VC gamessomeone who wanted to skip yet another optional purchase should be able to play Mario 64 with a Wii-mote and 'chuck. Worse, you have to plug the thing into your Wii-mote, further contributing to the flood of AAs going to battery heaven.

No Pack-In Component Cables

At this point I'm still relieved that the Wii even supports component cables, but they're yet another expense on top of an already big pile of stuff. Yeah, the Wii is cheap, but we're getting nickeled-and-dimed to death on stuff that really should have been in the box. And the cables included with the GameCube don't work.

Region-Bound

I'm feeling petulant, and not simply because Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan promised us and we didn't get a pony. Once upon a time a region-free player might have been a lot to ask for. But after the Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, PS3, and, to some extent, the Microsoft Xbox 360 all let us play imported games, it's something people have come to expect.

Weak Wrist Strap

Considering all the warnings in the user manual and the constant in-game reminders to use the Wii-mote only with the strap (lest you accidentally destroy everyone and everything you ever loved), you'd think they'd have made a strap that wouldn't break if you stared at it too hard. Indeed, at press time Nintendo had just officially agreed to exchange 3.2 million straps worldwide with stronger ones.

Short Sensor-Bar Cord

This won't be any kind of problem for most. But for those with front-projection TVs, it can amount to a monumental pain in the butt. About all you can really do is cut the damn thing and splice in an extra length of wire, or maybe cobble together something else as a surrogate sensor: The device is just a light emitter, after all. Too bad there isn't a longer cord or a wireless option. Heck, if the thing isn't actually communicating with the Wii, why can't I just plug it into the wall?

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